


Fled into Darkness and Despair (The Realms of the Gods)

by maims



Category: Dreaming of Sunshine, Naruto
Genre: Also how baddass boasting is "I killed a Moon Goddess", Alternate Universe - Kaguya Exists, And then his loyal head priest got drawn and quartered before he could VENGENCE, And then that meddling kid and her senpai too, Because he invested a lot in that place, Because it's thematically appropriate, Dimension Travel, Gen, Nightmares, Pissed off Jashin, Shikamaru having to deal with vendettas he doesn't know about because classified, this had better fixed my tag order omg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-30 17:47:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20101168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maims/pseuds/maims
Summary: I wrote this as a prologue to a larger DA:I cross that I had all planned, partly written, and slightly less posted. This, however, can be a standalone one-shot.***In the aftermath of the war, Shikamaru is caught up in an experiental jutsu tangle, and lands straight in Jashin's clutches. Now he has to survive long enough to be rescued.***Fanfiction of Dreaming of Sunshine by Silver Queen***Ps. Tags should be fixed now.





	Fled into Darkness and Despair (The Realms of the Gods)

_Shikamaru ran._

The problem hadn’t been his practicing experimental shadow techniques. He had not been testing anything he had not tested safely before. The problem had not been Shikako testing experimental space-time seals on him either. She never tested anything on him she hadn’t ensured was safe by, for example, testing them on herself before, that recklessly suicidal idiot. No, the problem was him practicing experimental shadow techniques while Shikako used experimental space-time seals in the near vicinity of Kakashi-sensei’s not-so-experimental-except-in-how-the-sharingan-is-always-insane Kamui.

_Shikamaru ran and ran._

The scenery streaked past him, monotonous in its ever changing. Nothing was true. Everything shifted, all the time, never stabilizing enough to become anything. There were… things… watching him run, scattering behind him. They were not important. The only thing important was the miasma of agony chasing him, radiating vengeance. It was not an offhand vengeance, undirected and incidental. It was a very, very personal vengeance, aimed directly at Shikamaru himself. He tried to think of what ill he had done to it, but could not come up with anything. He rather thought any encounter with such a being would have been memorable, if not horribly scarring, and no such incident seemed quite relevant to the situation – to the creature – at hand. He aimed himself at a minute crack in the distance – a crack in the fabric of reality itself. It was his only chance.

_Shikamaru ran and ran, and Shikako’s voice rang through his head._

It had been immediately before Kaguya, before they had gone to confront a goddess. She had pulled him aside, taken his face in her hands, and stared him down as she said a single sentence. A sentence important enough she used what might be their last moments together to tell him. A sentence that had been relevant once, before he had ever used it.

_IN THE REALMS OF THE GODS_

These were not the realms of the gods, precisely, more a shadow realm, uncertain and wavering, dreamlike and nightmarish. An in-between world, where the physical was irrelevant, a spiritual world. And Shikamaru was a Nara, whose specialty was the spiritual, rather than the physical. This did not make him feel more comfortable, rather the opposite, as he was more aware than any neophyte just how _dangerous_ the spiritual could be.

_THE HUMAN WILL_

If it had only been one thing that brought him here, he would not have worried at all. No good ninja didn’t consider counters to their own techniques. But he wasn’t overly worried even so. He might fret over his sister, hate how she would sacrifice so much of herself for some undeserving cause, how she would put herself so readily into danger, but he would never underestimate her love for her family. She would come for him, even if she had to burn herself out to do it. That was the greater cause of worry.

He hurtled forward, as the crack grew bigger, because he was closer, and because whatever had caused it was still in the works. He ran and ran, ignoring his burning lungs until they stopped burning, his aching limbs until they stopped aching. They only hurt because he thought they should. When he stopped thinking about them, he didn’t even have to use chakra to compensate, they simply stopped hurting.

The crack was right before him – he didn’t stop to consider the consequences, didn’t stop to consider that it might not be big enough, might not be _shaped_ _right_ for a human body. He simply plunged through. Shikako was coming for him. Shikako would find him.

_IS PARAMOUNT_

All he had to do was survive.

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be a prologue but is being denied its aspirations, as I doubt I will ever finish it. Anyone wanting to use this in any way is more than welcome to.


End file.
